Alternatively titled, "Why Foils are a Waste of Money"

Inspired by Pack-to-Power's Jonathan Medina, I want to take this week's time to discuss the act of foiling out a deck. A great number of people do this, especially within the Legacy and Vintage community, ostensibly with the thought that the cards in their decks will be good forever and that they will retain their value. While those two sentiments may prove true, there is a major logical oversight that takes place when one decides to commit such a large portion of their collection's value in such illiquid assets. If your only goal in Magic is to own shiney, foreign, or shiny foreign cards, then "pimp" that deck out, but if you're like most "normal" Magic players, you like the idea of getting the most for your money.

Jon recently tweeted (@mtgmetagame) that he was considering scaling down his foils into regular copies and pocketing the difference. When asked my opinion, I met him with a resounding affirmative. How much money could he free up by doing this? Well, courtesy of the man himself, let's take a look at a pair of case studies.

Here's some sort of blue-based Legacy abomination that clearly demonstrates why I despite the format! It's got some blue spells, some removal, and an abject lack of Fireblast, hence I have no desire to play this deck. Of greater consequence than the deck's lack of free burn is the sheer amount of money tied up here in foils and foreign foils. The conclusion may Shock you. Or Helix... you. But it won't fireblast you, no sir. This is not every single card in his deck, but even without the extra $30 or so the foil Unhinged basic lands added, the savings are still ridiculous.

* - Yes, Japanese Foil Spell Snares can sell for between 75-100 dollars a piece. Yes, that is insane.

** - I cannot find an accurate price for the Japanese ones. Regular foils sell for 25 and Japanese foils of this nature tend to be about double, if not more. Just FINDING 3 Japanese foil Standstills would be nigh-impossible these days.

This is without the sideboard, in which the playset of foil Counterbalances add another $90 or so in savings, not to count the rest of the sideboard. In total, by de-pimping his deck, Jonathan would save approximately $1700. Yes, that is enough to buy two complete Standard decks. Yes, that is enough to buy over 2 cases of Rise of the Eldrazi. You could buy 38 Gideon Jura with $1700, or you could buy a pretty nice used motorcycle. Heck you could even pay 6 months rent in some areas (or, you know, a month's rent in New York City...) You could go on vacation to many wonderful places around the world, travel to every PTQ within 4 hours of your home, or you could just put it into savings and have a great cushion in case you ever get very sick or lose your job.

The point is, $1700 is more than most players have in their Magic collection. By de-foiling your collection, or just an expensive old deck, you could free up an astronomical amount of money. Looking at my EDH collection, which has some pretty sweet stuff in it, I can see a number of opportunities. I too am guilty of holding onto a promotional foil Enlightened Tutor. My Beta Sol Ring is tying up over $40 for almost no reason. I have a number of foil rares that are easily worth 2-3 times what their non-foil counterparts are worth, and for what? So when someone sits down at the EDH table, I get to prove how much more I spend on Magic than they do?

In my case, I only ever keep 1 copy per language of any given card for my personal collection, and I prefer my cards to be as cheap and beat-to-hell as possible. There is a big difference between collecting Magic the Gathering and playing Magic the Gathering. I want to stress this point, and there's no simpler way to say this:

By de-foiling his deck, Jonathan could pocket four figures worth of cash and retain a completely playable, tournament-legal deck.

No cards will actually change. The prices quoted above assumed Near-Mint condition for both foil and non-foil versions. If Jonathan were to downgrade from NM foils and Foreign Black-Borders to heavily played copies of everything, his savings would likely almost double.

Now, in the defense of all those who foil and pimp out Legacy decks, it is likely that their cards are investments, and will either retain value or slowly appreciate. However, where I come from, slow appreciation of value is a slow death. Arrogant though it may seem, my goal is to double up on every speculation or trade, and my methods are proven and practiced. Doubling up on almost 2 Grand worth of cardboard can be tough, but by using the right channels, it is do-able.

Were I in possession of all these cards, I'd most likely bring the lot to a large Eternal event. A 5K weekend, an upcoming Grand Prix, or a regional Vintage/Legacy tournament would be best, and GenCon, which occurs each August in Indianapolis, would be even better. Cards this obscure require a specialty market, and unless an easy cash sale was found, it would be best to trade for more liquid assets, namely non-foils and Standard staples.

Liquidity is so important when trading, and it is a concept many just openly neglect. Liquidity, in a nutshell, is just another way of describing how easily you can get full value for your assets. A foil Japanese Standstill is nigh-impossible to find, and as a result, there are probably only a handful of players on Earth who would even CONSIDER paying you "book value" for it. You could sell it to someone like me, a dealer, and take about a 50% hit on it, but that doesn't make it liquid. The reason I'd have to give you only 50% is because then I assume the risk of liquidating the card, not you. It's all about the time value of cardboard and money.

The time value of money is a concept you'll learn about if you ever take some economics courses. I encourage you to do so if this sort of material interests you, as it might bend the way you think about Magic, both playing and collection. In the finance world, people who trade Options are very focused on the time value of money. While MTG hasn't got anything like Options, which are basically contracts that either bind or permit you to either buy or sell an equity at a given time, the same basic concepts can apply. For example, when you buy an Extended staple like Tarmogoyf in the depths of the summer Standard season, you are paying a significantly lower price, sometimes even up to 50% lower. Why? Because you will likely not use the card for almost 6 months! You are tying up your money in something that will not appreciate or have utility for a long time. If money is not an issue, or you have smartly set out a budget in advance for such practices, you will make money in the long run.

Magic players, despite being strategically gifted for the most part, do not seem to apply this gift to their collection bankroll. By being able to understand the time value of money, and thus become able to recognize when assets are unnecessarily illiquid, you can generate a great deal of value at almost no cost. This applies across all formats. If your goal is to play, then your goal should be to acquire the cheapest possible cards to do so. I regularly swap my personal cards into the store's stock and take the store's beat-up old staples. I bought a Karakas that had seemingly been snapped in half for around $5. My copy was in great condition, and thus, I simply reallocated the NM/SP copy to be sold, and the busted-up copy to be held in my keeper box. Trading for played cards is a fantastic way to generate extra value, as long as you trade away the NM stuff you are downgrading.

Overall, this is just one more way to squeeze extra value out of your MTG collection. Remember, every little bit counts. This is business, so even if penny-pinching seems unnecessarily tight, it will add up much faster than you realize. Money has a way of attracting more money, so the more you can allocate towards trading rather than playing, the more mileage you'll get out of every dollar you spend on Magic!